RedBalloon’s Online Training and Sales Efforts Rise Up With GoToMeeting

Established in 2001 and based in New South Wales, Australia, RedBalloon Pty Ltd is a leading online gift retailer for experiences ranging from circus skills classes to off-road driving adventures. Its 45 employees work toward making RedBalloon a brand that is synonymous with personalized gifting. RedBalloon Days is the company’s flagship consumer website, offering more than 2,000 experiences that can all be purchased online. RedBalloon For Corporate provides online experience-based incentive and reward solutions—a first for Australia and New Zealand. RedBalloon’s consumer and corporate brands are unique in that all transactions are web-based.

Challenge: deliver an amazing online customer experience

With 350 corporate clients including Telstra and Westpac, RedBalloon For Corporate develops online incentive and reward platforms for some of Australia’s largest brands, managing everything from custom-designed internal points programs to gifting services available at the click of a mouse. Because RedBalloon’s solutions are all delivered over the Internet, the company considers client usability paramount to its success.

“At RedBalloon, we are Internet-savvy but our clients may not be,” explained Program Manager Sarah Rupley. “We want our clients to have an amazing online experience, which is why we need to train them to use the RedBalloon platform correctly.”

But training clients on the rewards platform over the phone was often a frustrating, cumbersome process. Clients were getting stuck, and program managers were having difficulty troubleshooting problems over the phone. Moreover, traveling to conduct in-person training sessions was cost prohibitive, with corporate clients spread out across Australia and New Zealand. Striving to deliver an exceptional client experience, RedBalloon went in search of a new training solution.

Solution: implementing GoToMeeting for online training

RedBalloon For Corporate discovered GoToMeeting from Citrix Online through BlueFire, a provider of IT managed services. RedBalloon was already a user of Citrix Presentation Server across the company, and RedBalloon For Corporate was confident in the high standard of service associated with the Citrix brand. The team saw real value in the collaboration features of GoToMeeting, such as screen sharing.

“RedBalloon is a tech-savvy company that walks the technology talk. Our use of GoToMeeting demonstrates to our clients that we not only understand technology, but that we use it to strengthen our business.”- James Wright, strategic account director, RedBalloon Pty Ltd

RedBalloon For Corporate has been using GoToMeeting since March 2008, with user licenses for the sales and operations team.

Web-based training improves customer relations

With GoToMeeting, RedBalloon has transitioned all client training sessions online. The move has saved the company thousands of dollars in travel costs alone, but for Rupley the biggest benefit of online meetings is the ability to train clients from the comfort of her own desk.

“I’m able to fire up a GoToMeeting session and rectify a problem in less than 10 minutes. GoToMeeting allows us to provide fantastic customer service,” she explained. The ease of use and screen-sharing capabilities of GoToMeeting also mean smoother, more personalized client training.

“GoToMeeting enables us to use the power of the web to personalize client training. With online meetings, we can show our clients around the rewards platform and then allow them to drive. This personalized instruction gives clients a complete understanding of how our product works. It also gives potential clients a complete picture of what we do because they can actually see what we offer in action.”

Speeding up sales cycles with online demonstrations

GoToMeeting has found its place within the corporate sales team as well. Before online meetings were introduced, there came a point in the sales process when representatives needed to visually demonstrate the online points program, often resulting in a presentation of the platforms over a series of phone calls or time-consuming, in-person meetings. Since using GoToMeeting, the team now demonstrates the platform in real time and can close a deal in one day.

“We’ve dramatically reduced our sales process, which used to take between 4 to 6 weeks from initial inquiry to establishing awards programs,” said James Wright, strategic account director. “GoToMeeting has removed the need for loads of phone calls or the need to book a physical meeting. We can have programs up and running in less than 24 hours.”

The RedBalloon For Corporate team also found using GoToMeeting impresses and delights the client. “Our clients are quite amazed at the speed at which you can be right inside their machine with GoToMeeting,” Wright said. “RedBalloon is a tech-savvy company that walks the technology talk. Our use of GoToMeeting demonstrates to our clients that we not only understand technology, but that we use it to strengthen our business.”

The end result has been a steady increase in corporate sales during the three months since implementing GoToMeeting.

Soaring into new markets

Using GoToMeeting recently helped RedBalloon win a $100K contract with a private landscape architecture firm based in San Francisco, California. The platform enabled the sales team to advance its discussions with the company, which had been looking at options for developing an incentive program for its local sales team in Australia.

“The corporate team was able to sell our platform and idea over a half hour online meeting, rather than phone calls and e-mails back and forth. It would’ve been impossible to explain what we have to offer without the GoToMeeting technology,” Wright said.

Future plans

RedBalloon For Corporate is currently investigating the possibility of using GoToMeeting to train its 700 suppliers on how to use the online program. In the future, the business will also explore other tools from Citrix Online that will assist in customer relations support.

“The corporate team was able to sell our platform and idea over a half-hour online meeting, rather than phone calls and e-mails back and forth. It would’ve been impossible to explain what we have to offer without the GoToMeeting technology,”- James Wright, strategic account director, RedBalloon Pty Ltd

Key benefits

Simplifies the training process

Enhances customer service for a competitive edge

Drives new business such as a $100K contract with California-based client